The Plot to Kill King

by William F. Pepper

  Most importantly, for the sake of healing and reconciliation, I appeal to you on behalf of the King family as well as millions of Americans concerned about the truth and justice in this case, to expeditiously set and conduct a trial for Mr. James Earl Ray.

  Dexter took the stand next and followed the tone set by his mother, supporting a new trial for James. The testimony of Dr. King’s widow and son were incredibly moving and provided some highly charged emotional moments. There were no questions for either witness from the state.

  At the end of the hearing that afternoon, the judge ruled that we should be allowed to test the rifle. He stated that he would ask the court of appeals to lift its stay so the testing could begin. It was then up to the court of appeals. On April 9, the court lifted its stay and ruled that the trial judge could order the testing of the rifle by the petitioner. Celebration was premature. We had underestimated the state’s determination to prevent or control the testing of the alleged murder weapon.

  On April 15, the state filed a motion with the administrative judge of Shelby County Criminal Court requesting that the matter be transferred out of Judge Brown’s Division IX court and referred back to the original trial court Division III. Apparently, Judge Brown was furious. He insisted that the matter was properly before him and was going to remain in his court in accordance with the court of appeals ruling. The administrative judge backed down and allowed the matter to remain in Division IX.

  The first-round test firing and examination resulted in an inconclusive finding by the panel of experts. It also revealed the possible reason for the result. The scanning electron microscope showed that a plating or coating of the bore was taking place after each test firing. Apparently, the heat generated by the action caused some melting of the copper jacketing and the residue plating was left behind. It also appeared likely that the gun and the evidence had been repeatedly fired, contributing greatly to the coatings. This made it impossible for a true “signature” of the rifle bore to be engraved upon the test-fired bullets. Instead, differing individual markings occurred. Even with this finding, however, the results also revealed that there was a common “start” or “reference” point on twelve of the test fires which was not present on the death slug. In light of the results, we filed a motion to be allowed to continue the tests in conjunction with a special cleaning process following a specific number of test fires.

  This motion was before the court when in bizarre fashion, Judge Colton (Division III—the trial court division in 1969) appointed a “special master” with subpoena and investigating powers.

  On the eve of our court hearing on the motion to continue testing, the attorney general obtained an injunction against our hearing and Judge Colton’s order and then filed a formal application against both judges seeking to prevent any further proceedings in the case. It occurred to me that Judge Colton’s actions had given the state the basis for that appeal, enabling the proceedings in Judge Brown’s court to be “piggybacked” into the injunction.

  The appellate court heard arguments on the issues on September 5, 1997, with the state attorney general representing the Shelby County district attorney general and me arguing on behalf of our motion and the propriety of Judge Brown’s actions. The packed courtroom included Dexter King representing the family. Later that afternoon the three judges unanimously permanently enjoined Judge Colton, holding that he had grossly exceeded his jurisdictional authority.

  Accepting my arguments, the court upheld Judge Brown’s authority to control the evidence and allow the testing to continue if he found it to be necessary. To have done otherwise would have sanctioned an unprecedented incursion on the functioning of a trial court whereby the trial judge’s traditional control over evidence in front of him could be removed. In a separately foreboding manner, the judges asked the assistant attorney general if the state was asking for the removal of Judge Brown from the case. At that time, she said no.

  We won, but there was a caveat. The court also ruled that the state should not pay for the firearms testing. The petitioner would have to foot the bill. By the time of the ruling, those total costs were approximately $30,000.

  The rifle in evidence would never again be tested. Months passed following our victory in the court of appeals, but no hearing was held. In light of his own previous questions from the bench, it was clear that Judge Brown believed that a specialized cleaning process, regularly implemented after minimal firing, would yield the scientific results necessary for him to grant a new trial, in that the markings on the experimental test-fired slugs would match each other and yet be distinguishable from the markings on the death slug. I sensed that he had already concluded that the rifle in evidence could not have been the murder weapon, but understandably, given the hostility of the Tennessee appellate courts to any possibility of opening up the case, he wanted to have the strongest scientific case possible for his ruling. Also, during this period, Judge Brown was being offered a substantial television contract and he was involved in those negotiations.

  Eventually, the opportunity to carry out the retesting would be taken from him. The district attorney general soon filed a motion asking him to recuse himself. He denied the motion, and the state appealed. Ruling on the papers submitted, without oral argument, in the darkness of night, as it were, the court of appeals overturned his ruling and removed him from the case on the grounds that he had ceased to be impartial—horrendous, but par for the course of Tennessee justice for James Earl Ray. James Earl Ray’s last chance for a trial had ended.

  Chapter 14

  A KEY PLAYER BEGINS TO TALK

  A step closer to the shadowy truth,

  Fear not guilt stood in the way,

  The teller now far from youth,

  His life waning day by day.

  Early in 1997, I began to have discussions with Loyd Jowers’s lawyer, Lewis Garrison, about the possibility of Jowers meeting Dexter King and myself and setting out everything he knew about the killing.

  The main impediment to such a meeting was Jowers’s fear of being indicted, convicted, and going to jail for the rest of his life. To overcome this, Dexter, on behalf of the family, and I agreed to give undertakings that we would support a grant of immunity for Jowers if he told us everything he knew about events leading up to the killing and the murder itself. I had no doubt Jowers was in the brush area at the time of the killing and that he knew who actually pulled the trigger. The rub, of course, was that he could have fired the shot himself. In any event, I argued he would be far better off with the support of the family, who were only interested in the truth and were not trying to seek retributive justice.

  Jowers agreed to meet. But he kept backing off. The “investigation” of Judge Colton concerned him for a while. Then certain newspaper reports, focusing on his involvement, chilled his cooperation. Garrison received inquiries about our planned meeting from a Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter with contacts in the attorney general’s office. This led Garrison and me to believe that his phone was still being tapped. Then, at the request of the district attorney general, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation began to interview witnesses and visited members of Jowers’s family, telling them they were going to indict him. This seriously panicked Jowers, who threatened to leave the country.

  Finally, a meeting was arranged. Dexter and I met with Jowers and Garrison at the Sheraton Inn in Jackson, Tennessee, on October 27, 1997. Over three hours, the truth—or at least, some of the truth—as known first-hand by Loyd Jowers, which he had kept bottled up for thirty years, gradually came out. Jowers continued to be fearful and tried to hedge his statements. I was able to interrogate him with Attorney Garrison, prompting him to confirm facts they had discussed since 1993.

  I asked Jowers to start at the beginning. He said he first met Memphis produce dealer Frank Liberto when he was in the Memphis Police Department (MPD). He was told by another officer—John Barger, who acted as an unofficial mentor to the young Jowers—that Frank Liberto was a Mafia operativ
e who could do a lot for a cooperative young policeman. When Jowers left the MPD and went into business—first running clubs and then bars and restaurants—the relationship continued. He learned early on that Liberto was into a variety of illegal activities, including gunrunning, drugs, prostitution, and gambling. Jowers would help handle money for Liberto, who would hand over a bundle of bills and instruct him to deliver the “package” to a particular person. He performed this task a number of times over the years. So when Liberto came to him in early 1968 and once again asked him to receive a bundle of money and turn it over to a man named Raul, who Liberto described in some detail, he was not surprised. When he received the money in a vegetable box, Jowers put it in a disused stove in the kitchen at Jim’s Grill, which is where Betty Spates remembers seeing it. When Raul turned up a day or two before the assassination, Jowers gave him the money.

  I placed a photograph spread of six pictures in front of Jowers. He picked the photograph of the man who was also identified as Raul by Glenda Grabow, her brother Royce Wilburn, Sid Carthew, and James Earl Ray. Jowers wryly commented that Raul’s very distinctive face was not easily forgotten.

  It is important to keep in mind that Jowers has, in the past twenty years, for understandable (though self-serving) reasons, given inconsistent accounts of what happened in and around Jim’s Grill on April 4, 1968. For example Jowers initially denied the presence of Betty Spates. He also initially claimed to be inside the Grill pulling beer at the time of the shot. He refused to acknowledge having any contacts with murder weapons after the shooting or involvement in planning meetings held in the Grill, or giving instructions that no one go upstairs.

  Eventually these denials were refuted by evidence I obtained from Betty Spates, her sister, and taxi driver McCraw, and even by Jowers himself, who was boxed in by his earlier lies.

  This would emerge as a main criticism of him in the June 2000 Department of Justice limited investigation report discussed below. Now, he said he recalled that after Frank Liberto approached him there was at least one, and probably up to three meetings in Jim’s Grill to prepare for the assassination. While he maintained that he did not sit in on these planning sessions, he remembered them taking place and recalled most of the participants. They included his old, now-deceased friend John Barger—by then an MPD officer—and undercover police officer Marrell McCollough, whose military intelligence role was unknown to Jowers. At an earlier time, Barger had brought McCollough to the Grill and introduced him as his new sidekick. In his 1977 testimony to the HSCA, McCollough had denied any intelligence role at the time of the assassination. Now with the CIA, McCollough was interviewed in April 1997 by ABC Primetime Live. He confirmed he knew Loyd Jowers. When asked about Jowers implicating him in the King assassination he said he had no comment and put the phone down. Local contacts have attempted to get McCollough to talk to me without success.

  Another MPD inspector who Jowers said was at the planning sessions has had a high profile in the case from the outset. He is still alive. The fourth participant was MPD officer Lieutenant Earl Clark, who died in 1987. Clark ran the MPD firing range out at the Armour Center and was regarded as perhaps the best shot in the force. Jowers also confirmed something I had learned some years ago—Clark was exceptionally close to Frank Liberto. Jowers said Liberto had told him that the police would not be around at the time of the killing and they had a “fall guy” in place. Jowers had previously told Attorney Garrison that he received the murder weapon from Raul the day before the killing and gave it back to him near the actual time of the assassination. He had also said he did not leave the Grill for a night or two before the killing.

  In our session he stated that the weapon was picked up by Earl Clark on the afternoon of the killing. Jowers said that he was instructed to go out through his kitchen into the brush area just before 6:00 p.m. and wait. He had the impression someone in Dr. King’s group was going to get Dr. King out onto the balcony around that time.

  After the shooting, he was to take the gun and keep it until it was picked up by Liberto’s man the next morning. Liberto, he said, made it clear to him that the weapon was his “personal property.” The following morning, a “Mexican” employee of Liberto’s came to the Grill, drank coffee, and waited until customers had left. He then picked up the gun and took it away. Jowers never saw him again. At other times, he had said that Raul picked up the weapon.

  While he continued to deny that Betty Spates was there on the afternoon of the killing, he effectively confirmed her account. His attorney, Lewis Garrison, noted that Jowers had, for some years, essentially validated her story. Betty Spates, as noted earlier, remembered two rifles. Jowers brought one in from the brush area around noon on the day of the killing and broke it down in front of her. She saw him carrying the second gun into the kitchen seconds after the fatal shot.

  Jowers confirmed Betty’s recollection that he placed the murder weapon under the counter. Taxi driver James McCraw always insisted that this was where he had seen it on the morning after the killing, though Jowers previously denied showing it to him. Jowers admitted being in the brush area with the shooter and taking the rifle “still smoking” from the assassin and running inside with it. Jowers made this crystal clear. He even said that he attempted to flush the extracted cartridge shell down the toilet off the kitchen and that it stopped it up. Though never emphatic, he indicated that the other man in the brush area—the actual assassin of Martin Luther King Jr.—was the MPD’s best shot, Lieutenant Earl Clark. He said that the shooter passed the rifle to him and took off. Jowers was too busy making tracks himself to notice where he went but seemed to recall that he headed back toward the building. I have now come to question not Clark’s involvement—I believe that he was totally involved and was one of the people in the bushes at the time of the shooting—but the allegation that he pulled the trigger. I had always been uneasy with Jowers’s less than completely positive statement of Clark’s responsibility. There was an ever-present hedge. Now I believe that I know why.

  As for Clark, in a sense I had come full circle. I had strongly suspected him of being the assassin in 1988 and 1989. When I interviewed his former wife, Rebecca, in 1992 she gave him what appeared to be a cast-iron alibi. She insisted he had been at home and asleep at the time of the killing and that when he was called in over his police “walkie-talkie,” she had to drive to the cleaners to pick up his uniform. She seemed believable. She had been divorced from Clark, who had remarried, and therefore had no reason to stand up for him. However, she was still raising his son who sat in on our interview and who had obviously been very attached to his father.

  I began to question Mrs. Clark’s credibility in 1995. Taxi driver McCraw told me that on the night of the shooting, he had picked her up in downtown Memphis and taken her miles away from home. McCraw had also made it clear to me that Clark, a Jim’s Grill regular, had openly boasted that he would kill Dr. King when he came to town. I had dismissed it as so much racist talk. But in 1995 McCraw told me he had seen Clark emerge from the south side of the rooming house around 6:20 p.m. wearing his MPD uniform. Jowers recalled him wearing light-colored civilian clothes at the time of the shooting.

  There were, and continued to be, inconsistencies about these and other details, but the scenario was coming together. The facts have been there, capable of discovery from the beginning. The first glimpse of the Liberto connection surfaced with John McFerren’s courageous report of the fat man screaming down the telephone to his shooter, “Shoot the son of a bitch when he comes on the balcony.” This was further confirmed by his own admissions to Whitlock, ten years later. There were other independent corroborating sources. But it would take the courage of Betty Spates and James McCraw to force Loyd Jowers to come forward in 1993, offering to tell all he knew in return for a grant of immunity. The reluctance of the authorities to hear what Jowers had to say was understandable, given how far up the line the conspiracy went.

  The Marcello/Liberto/Memphis PD assassinatio
n operation provided the government with a plausibly deniable alternative to the use of its own trained professionals who were waiting in the wings and ultimately not required. We have seen that organized crime frequently fulfills this need and insulates federal, state, and public officials and agencies from responsibility for a variety of illegal acts. The underlying financial arrangements, even commercial collaboration, such as gunrunning and drug dealing joint ventures, which finance the illegal covert operations, rarely come to light. When they do surface, massive damage limitation and cover-up operations are mounted. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was a tragedy for the American people. The shameful truth behind its execution and subsequent cover-up is a searing indictment of betrayal and abuse of power.

  James Dies

  During the last stage of James’s life, as a part of the Shelby County district attorney general’s investigation, I agreed to allow the two lead investigators, Marvin Glankler and MPD officer Tim Cook, to interview James. My former investigators, Ken Herman and John Billings, while not trusting Glankler, initially believed that Cook was trying to get the truth out. I was skeptical, but in the interests of not giving the state the opportunity to say that he did not cooperate with them, I agreed to allow this access, and the visit took place in the Lois DeBerry medical unit at Riverbend. Jerry Ray was also present.

  After some initial conversation, Cook began to lean heavily on James to admit his guilt. I had difficulty believing what I was hearing. Would they never learn? He took the line that he could quickly arrange for James to be released and allowed to die outside of the prison in the bosom of his family. He got nowhere. James had not professed his innocence and fought for a trial for thirty years to finally give in to the shameful entreaties of a Memphis Police Department officer. In a brief exchange with the officer near the end of his visit, I learned that Lieutenant Earl Clark’s partner, hunting buddy, and friend John Coletta was a member of Cook’s family by marriage—an intriguing coincidence.